How to properly link to products from category pages?
-
Hi All,
We have an e-commerce website and the category pages are built so that there is a product image and below it there is the title. Both the image and the title are in a href (each on its own).
I encountered the following unfinished discussion here at MOZ:
http://www.seomoz.org/q/how-to-optimize-achor-text-links-on-ecommerce-category-page#post-93758The discussion states that its improper.
The question is - if it is wrong then why? (maybe because Google will give its weight to the image anchor instead of the text anchor since it is higher in the page).
The other question is how to resolve the matter?
Should I add nofollow to the image href?Thanks
-
Dear Everett,
Can you supply the link to the article?
Thanks
-
Also see this page for more information on using named anchor links (i.e. page.html#image) to avoid the "first link counts" issue. This is what Alan Mosley is recommending. I think it is much safer than using CSS to try and "trick" search engines. You can put the image on product pages in a named anchor like #image.
Resources:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/results-of-google-experimentation-only-the-first-anchor-text-counts
http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/3-ways-to-avoid-the-first-link-counts-rule
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-first-link-counts-rule-and-the-hash-sign
-
No problem, glad I could help!
-
Works amazing!!!!!
Thanks a lot for all of your help.
-
I would do something like this: http://jsfiddle.net/D7vMG/3/ (do you see the z-indexes? it makes sure the anchor is higher positioned then the paragraph.)
You can of course use only the <a>-tag and not a heading. In that case you can put the position: absolute on the a-tag.</a>
<a>Hope it helps! Good luck!</a>
-
THANKS!!! I've been working on it since your first reply
Last question (I'm a bit rude now) -
I also have price beneath "The New Ipad" anchor. Currently it is not in the href and I'm thinking of keeping it this way (which would mean it will be in the H3 but not in the href).
Also, the href's are simple href's not surrounded by h3's, What do you think? Changing them? (keeping the price outside the href but inside the H3)
It seems correct but changing would mean of a lot of anchors will be changed on the entire website... scarry
-
Yeah of course, you can style the link any way you want. Even hide it
although I wouldn't recommend that hehe.
I made this jsfiddle for you: http://jsfiddle.net/D7vMG/1/
good luck trying it yourself!
-
It is pretty much as if the anchor flows over the entire image.
I did this a while back on a dutch telecom website called typhone dot nl. Check it out, it's on the frontpage (the offer blocks all have it)
The H3 is just there as an example. If I just got an H1 above all products, i use h2's, if there is a h2, i use h3's. and so on.
-
That's what the css code above does, it puts the link beneath the image visually when users look at the site, while keeping the link above the image in the actual code.
-
I should not of said 2 pages, but it has been shown that both links will give link text relevancy.
The javascript link will be followed, it will not help
-
Is there a way to do so and having the link appearing beneath the image?
I don't want to change the design
-
Dear Alan,
If Google will see it as two pages I'm guessing I will need to add a canonical to the # version. Is that the case?
What about having the image with a javascript link? (location.href) or is that suspicious?
-
Dont use no-follow, you will just leak link juice.
One way around this, is to use a anchor # in your url for the image. like page.html#someterm
This will in fact give you link text relevancy for both, google will see this as 2 different pages.
Make sure you have alt text for the image.
This tataic and well as what x-com may in the future be seen as over optimization, so it may be tter to do somthing like this
Your link text
You can just link the whole lot in the one link.
Or move your text to above the image.
-
Thank you for the answer.
I'm not too strong with css besides for the basics,
what you mean is that the anchor will be displayed beneath the image for the user even though the code is placed before the image and also that clicking on the image will actually be like clicking on the anchor since its size includes the image???
Brilliant, it will also give more "engagement credit" to the anchor instead of splitting it (actually ppl usually clicking on the image).
By the way, do you put all of your products on the page as H3?
Thanks
-
Hi Noamflint, we develop a lot of e-commerce websites and I want to fill you in how we tackled this problem several months ago and how.
We deleted the anchor of the image! In our code it looks something like:
The New iPad
As you see at the moment there is no anchor on the image, but our clients do want this. because of usabilty. and people just love clicking images.
We solved this with CSS:
div { position: relative; padding-top: 30px; display: block; }
div h3 { position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 0px; display: block; }
div h3 a { width: 200px; height: 230px; display: block; }
div img { width: 200px; height: 200px; display: block; }
This code above is pseudo of course, but i hope you see what we are trying to accomplish. The anchor tag is positioned absolute in the parent div. With the dimensions on it, the link is above the image, so when people hover the image. they automatically hover the link. Clicking in it, takes them to the detail page.
You should try it! Maybe it will help you out.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
My product category pages are not being indexed on google can someone help?
My website has been indexed on google and all of its pages can be found on google except for the product category pages - which are where we want our traffic heading to, so this is a big problem for us. Our website is www.skirtinguk.com And an example of a page that isn't being indexed is https://www.skirtinguk.com/product-category/mdf-skirting-board/
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | chelseaskirtinguk0 -
WordPress – parent category "blog" instead of regular "post page"?
In WordPress you normally show you blog posts on: Your home page. Your "posts page" (configurable in the Reading Settings) I want to do neither and have a third option instead: Assign a parent category called "blog" for all posts, and show the latest posts on that category's archive page. For the readers, the experience will be 100% the same as a regular "posts page". The UI, permalinks, and breadcrumbs will be 100% the same. But, I have heard that the "posts page" is important for Google for indexing and understanding your blog. So is is smarter SEO-wise to use a "posts page" instead of a parent category named "blog"? What negative effects might there be, if I have no "posts page" and just use the parent category "blog" instead?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NikolasB0 -
Link building… how to get high rewarding links?
Hi Guys, I have a few people whom I have built relationships up in my industry with that would like to link to my site. Is there any particular things I need to be mindful of before having them link to me? I'm just mindful of the unknown. Also, which links to use etc? Thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | edward-may0 -
Huge e-commerce site migration - what to do with product pages?
My very large e-commerce client is about to undergo a site migration in which every product page URL will be changing. I am already planning my 301 redirect process for the top ~1,000 pages on the site (categories, products, and more) but this will not account for the more than 1,000 products on the site. The client specified that they don't want to implement much more than 1,000 redirects so as to avoid impacting site performance. What is the best way to handle these pages without causing hundreds of 404 errors on site migration day? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | FPD_NYC0 -
Is there a negative effect to show categories and products on the same page?
I mean having say 5 different categories on a page and showing the products that are in those categories below the categories. Just In case people don't want to dig deeper to find there product because they know what they need already. I would also want those categories for the people that need to do a little more searching and have a better reference guide. So is there any negatives to my SEO doing it that way?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mike.Bean0 -
Ok to use rich snippets for same product on multiple pages?
I am developing a new set of pages for a series of products which exist on separate sub domains linked to the root domain. The product pages on the sub domains have rich snippets; review count, review score etc. The new pages im building out are for the same products though on the root domain and with different content. Im not comfortable marking those pages up with rich snippets too given they will have the same review counts, scores etc though would like to if its viable? Any thoughts/opinions? Thanks, Andy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AndyMacLean0 -
Linking to local pages on main page - keyword self-cannibalization issue?
Hi guys, Our website has this landing page: www.example.com/service1/ Is this considered keyword self-cannibalization if on the above page we link to local pages such as: www.example.com/service1-in-chicago/ www.example.com/service1-in-newyork/ www.example.com/service1-in-texas/ Many thanks David
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sssrpm0 -
Dynamic Links vs Static Links
There are under 100 pages that we are trying to rank for and we'd like to flatten our site architecture to give them more link juice. One of the methods that is currently in place now is a widget that dynamically links to these pages based on page popularity...the list of links could change day to day. We are thinking of redesigning the page to become more static, as we believe it's better for link juice to flow to those pages reliably than dynamically. Before we do so, we need a second opinion.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RBA0